


Unshaken by the Darkness

by tarysande



Series: Rose Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alphabet Meme, F/M, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarysande/pseuds/tarysande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen Rutherford's past and present, from childhood through the Inquisition, told through interconnected short stories one letter of the alphabet at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Andraste

Cullen liked the chantry. Other children complained it was boring or stupid—even Mia whined when Ma wasn’t around to hear—but Cullen didn’t really understand that. The chantry was always warm, always cozy, always lit by candles. It smelled of incense and baking bread and the flowers some of the village girls left at the foot of the statue of Andraste. He liked the statue; Andraste had a nice face and a really big sword—to protect everyone, Ma said. ("To remind us who holds the power,” said his Da. Cullen didn’t understand that, either.)

Best of all, though, was the music. One voice, or five, or fifteen, it didn’t matter. The Chant always delighted him, and there was always singing in the chantry. Always.

The Revered Mother smiled at him, and he didn’t mind if she ruffled his hair even though he hated when Mia did it. The Revered Mother never teased him, and never treated him like a baby. She only said he was a good lad and wasn’t he clever and what a pleasant surprise to see a boy so devoted. Sometimes she slipped him sweets, but that wasn’t why he liked coming.

He never said it out loud, because Mia her friends already teased him enough about everything, and Bran was the baby and did everything Mia said, but accompanying his mother on her visits was his favorite part of the week. Bran didn't like to go and Cullen hated when Ma brought him. It was better when he stayed with Mia, and not just because it always made Mia's face turn sour.

Cullen liked walking beside her, his hand safely tucked in hers. He looked forward to kneeling pressed against her side, closing his eyes, and letting the music wash over him. _Peaceful_ was the word his ma used, when he asked why she liked coming so much. He thought that sounded right. No one yelling or laughing at him. No one sneaking up and pulling his hair or stealing his share of the cookies or calling him names like Cully Crybaby (he only cried that one time because Mia yanked out a whole _handful_ of hair and it _really_ hurt).

Sometimes, though, no matter how much he wanted to stay awake, the warmth and comfort and coziness, the sweet smells and sweeter songs rocked him to sleep like the best lullabye, and he’d wake curled on his side with Ma’s shawl draped over him and his head in her lap. This time when he woke, she was running her fingers through his hair gently, like he did when he was petting their mouser’s new kittens. He thought about closing his eyes again, pretending to sleep, just to enjoy the touch, but then his ma made a strange little sound like a swallowed hiccup and he couldn’t help looking up into her face.

“Mama,” he whispered, even though he hadn’t called her that since he was practically a _baby_ , “why’re you crying?”

The pillow of her lap jumped beneath his head when he spoke. “Oh, Cullen, love. I didn’t hear you wake.”

He scrambled to his feet, his mother’s shawl sliding to the floor, and pressed his small hand against her damp cheek. Her lips smiled, but she still looked so sad, sadder than he’d been when Mia pulled his hair out and made him cry. “Mama,” he repeated. “What’s-a matter?”

“My tender-hearted boy,” she said, leaning forward and lifting him in her arms, cuddling him close. He didn’t squirm away, even though he was too old to be held like a baby. He didn’t know what ‘tender-hearted’ meant, but it didn’t sound like a tease. A tear dropped from her chin to land on the top of his head. “I’ll be well again soon enough. It’s only… it’s only I lost something, and it made me sick.”

“And sad?”

“And sad,” she said. “Sometimes even mamas get sad.”

He looked over his mother’s shoulder at the statue of Andraste. _Help my mama, please. I’ll be really good._ Andraste looked a bit sad, too, now he thought of it. Maybe her sword was too heavy. Maybe she’d lost something. Maybe she wished more people would talk to her instead of complaining that going to the chantry was boring.

His mother smelled of flowers like the ones heaped around the statue. And chantry incense. They’d been inside a long time. Her lips against his cheek were so, so soft. “Shall we go for a treat, you and I? Perhaps the baker has some shortbread.”

She set him down a moment later, and got to her feet. Before she could bend down for it, he handed her the fallen shawl. “And you can have a honeycake.”

“My favorite.”

“I know,” he said, and immediately reached for her hand instead of waiting for her to take his. For once he didn’t care if anyone saw and teased him. His ma needed his help. “It’ll make you feel better.”

She squeezed his hand. “Already done, my darling. Already done.”

#

In Cullen’s experience, one chantry was much the same as another. Some bigger, some smaller. Some with costly stained-glass windows, while others made do with plain shutters. Wood floors or stone, or even, though he’d never seen it himself, marble. The particulars of the statues changed, or their arrangement did. Sometimes different incense was used, or candles of different shapes and sizes.

The Chant, however, remained the same. He found comfort in that. The current chanter was working through a selection from the Canticle of Transfigurations; he recognized it at once. Apt, perhaps.

Making his way to the front of the chapel, he paused before the lone statue there. No sword for this Andraste; her palms were spread wide and welcoming. Perhaps mages in a Circle saw enough of swords. He was, at that moment, very aware of the weight of his own. For all her gentler demeanor, the tranquility of this Andraste’s expression was as tinged with sadness as that of the warrior Andraste he’d grown up with. Something about the eyes made him think of lost things.

_Oh, Maker, hear my cry…_

It was no small honor to be assigned to a Circle such as Kinloch Hold so early in a templar’s career, but with that honor came responsibility. He couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —lose sight of that. Not now, not ever.

“You’re a new one,” said a voice. His hand flexed around the grip of his blade, but he did not embarrass himself by drawing steel. The girl who stood at his side wore apprentice robes, and kept her hands folded in front of her where he could see them. “I’d definitely remember those curls.”

He blinked at her.

When he failed to reply, she continued with an easy sort of amiability, “Usually I’m alone in here. This time of day, anyway. Or evening. Night. I suppose it counts as night.”

He took a step backward, half bowing his head, nearly hamstringing himself against the first pew. “F-forgive me. I did not mean to interrupt your prayers.”

Her laugh reminded him, improbably, of the sweet blossoms the village girls left at Andraste’s feet back in Honnleath. No flowers in this chantry, he noticed. He supposed any plants grown at Kinloch were destined for the higher purpose of potion-making and herbalism, not to be wasted on girlish fancies and presents left to wither at the base of statues. “Maker, so very grave! I daresay I don’t need the whole place to myself. Pull up a pew, Ser—?”

“Ruther—sorry, Cullen. Ser. Ser Cullen.”

“Not sure, then? Seems something you’d have figured out by now.” Her smile drew him in, almost pulling an answering one from him. He was in uniform, though, if not on duty, and she was a mage. And he was, as she’d noted, _new_. He wasn’t certain the Knight-Commander would approve of smiling at apprentices.

As if sensing this turn of his thoughts, her smile faded and she unfolded her hands, turning them palms-up, echoing the posture of the statue. Hers was apologetic, though, rather than Andraste’s welcoming. Just as genuine. “My turn to ask forgiveness. I shouldn’t tease. It would be disrespectful even if you weren’t wearing that emblem on your chest. Is it that you choose new names when you become a templar?”

“No,” he said. “But we only use the one. Not everyone has a surname, so we use our given names. Here, anyway. In Ferelden.”

“So orderly. They ought to employ something similar for us mages. But no, half the time it’s, ‘Solona, don’t set fire to the curtains’—never intentionally, mind you—and the other half it’s, ‘And just why did you think that was a good idea, Apprentice Amell?’” She shook her head her head, sighing, and her hair, loose around her shoulders, glimmered in the candlelight. “That was a backward way of introducing myself, wasn’t it? Pleased to meet you, Ser Cullen. I’m Apprentice Solona Amell. Not nearly as inept—or as much a troublemaker—as I just made myself sound.”

“I… didn’t think that.”

“Oh, you’re a terrible liar. I like that. Better than the ones who lie through their teeth and make it all sound so plausible.”

He didn’t know what to say to this; she spoke with the bitterness of personal experience. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other earned another sigh from her. “I may not be an inept troublemaker, but my tongue does run off. Best get back to it, if I want absolution by curfew.” Like the statue, her smile didn’t quite steal the old sadness from her eyes, and, before he could think better of it, he wondered what had put it there. Lost things.

With ruthlessness that made his gut twist, he pulled the thought up by the roots and set it aside like it was a weed and he a dedicated gardener. Responsibility. Not friendship. He couldn’t lose sight of it. If he thought too much about sad eyes, he mightn’t be able to strike without hesitation if she—Maker forbid—lost control of her magic. He owed it to her, as well as to those she might unintentionally hurt the way she’d unintentionally set curtains on fire. It was, after all, the templar’s place. To guard. To protect.

Solona—Apprentice Amell ducked her head, and spoke to the floor, a little of that sadness echoing in her tone. “Well. Like I said. Please don’t leave on my account, Ser Cullen. Plenty of room. I won’t bother you again.”

She turned away before he could speak—not that he knew what to say—and returned to her pew, kneeling with the effortless fluidity of the devout. She didn’t look back at him. And even with her open arms, Andraste seemed somehow disapproving. His knees ached to bend.

Moving to the other side of chapel, closer to the door, he knelt and drifted through his own distracted devotions. When he heard Apprentice Amell’s steps a little while later, he lifted his head and said, “Y-you weren’t. Bothering me. So you know.”

“Good,” she declared, with a smile so bright it nearly banished the residual sadness altogether. “Who says the Maker’s not listening?”

Without waiting for an answer—or a reprimand about blasphemy—she tossed him a final wave and departed in a swirl of robes, leaving him to his thoughts, and Andraste’s smile, and the final verse of Transfigurations, clear and pure, fading into silence.


	2. Baby

The baby was crying again.

Cullen, still bleary-eyed with sleep and all fogged up with dreaming, rolled from his bed and padded barefoot across the room he shared with his year-younger brother, Branson. Bran did not bother getting up. He was awake, though, because he groaned and buried his head under a pillow, muttering words Da would give him a smack for, if he heard.

Opening the door adjoining their rooms, he peeked at Mia’s bed. A mess of blonde curls said she, too, was determined to sleep through the noise. Cullen smiled, crossing to baby Rosalie's cradle. He was just tall enough to reach inside. Carefully, so carefully, just like Ma showed him, he lifted her out and held her close to his chest, making sure to always, always protect her neck. Babies, he’d learned the hard way, had very wobbly necks. The smell of her filthy nappy made his eyes water, but it wasn’t her fault. Sometimes Bran got mad at her for things like that, even though baby nappies weren’t as disgusting as the chamber pot when Bran was through with it. Cullen thought maybe Bran was just jealous to not be the baby anymore. It'd been almost six years, after all.

This made Cullen laugh. Rosalie stopped her whimpering and looked up at him with the funny little smile Ma said meant she had gas, but which Cullen decided meant she liked him best of all. Mia didn’t say any of the swears Bran had, but she still lifted her head and pleaded, “Please, Cull. You take her, and I’ll… I’ll do chores for you. Something. Anything. Please. I’m so tired.”

“S’okay, Mia,” he said, quiet, so Rosalie wouldn’t get upset. “I can do it.”

“Don’t bother Ma unless you have to. She’s still—”

“I _know_ , Mia.”

“And watch her neck.”

“Mia.”

His sister’s head hit the pillow with a relieved sigh, and her soft snores followed him from the room.

He took Rosalie to the kitchen because it was farthest from the trio of rooms where his family was sleeping, and it was the warmest, even with the fire in the hearth banked for the night. He changed her nappy, proud when he only gagged one time. At least he didn’t throw up, the way Bran did. Twice.

Rosalie made funny faces, squirming and wriggling like the earthworms that came up out of the garden after the rain. There’d be earthworms today; outside the rain and wind howled. A clap of thunder made him jump, and made Rosalie start crying all over again. “Oh no,” he said, patting the side of her scrunched-up, red face. It didn’t help; she only took a deep breath and sobbed harder. They could really cry, babies.

Picking her up—careful, careful—he cuddled her close and began bouncing up and down on his toes. Up, down, side to side, again and again and again until she quieted. His arms ached from holding her—she was getting heavier and heavier, and he wasn’t growing up as fast as she was. It would be easier if he was as big as Mia.

Didn’t matter. She needed someone, and right now she had him. He wasn’t going to let sore arms get in the way of that. He was a big brother. Big brothers had _responsibilities_.

“It’s okay, Rosie,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her downy head. She smelled nice now, like sleepy baby and milk and the lavender Ma always tucked into the linens. “It’s okay. Ma’s gonna get better soon, and Bran'll like you more when you can play, and Mia’s just tired from doing all the stuff Ma usually does. And I’m gonna take real good care of you. Nappies and spit-up and everything, so don’t you worry.”

Rosalie gave him another of her gummy smiles, and since it wasn’t followed by needing another nappy change, Cullen decided it was a real one. Big brothers knew these kinds of things, after all.

#

The door behind Cullen was locked and barred, but even thick wood did little to block the horrible noises from within. He did not turn toward the room, instead keeping his wary, watchful gaze facing outward. No one walked this hall. Every sweep of his eyes revealed only the same stones, the same sconces lit by magic, the same closed doors. Only the room behind him was occupied. His shoulders were already straight, but he set them again anyway, and told himself it wasn’t because the mage’s cries were getting to him.

Eleanor. Her name was Eleanor. She deserved that much. After everything she was going through, she deserved her name, at the very least. Harrowed not a year ago. Seemed content with her life in Kinloch Hold; certainly wasn’t one of the Circle’s known troublemakers. Her friends called her Ellie, and she had enough of them that he’d been a regular guard in the library for three months before he first heard someone address her by her full name. She was good with the apprentices. And she always had a smile, even for him, though they’d never spoken beyond the very briefest of polite greetings.

He did not need to be in the room to know she was not smiling now. No one who cried like she was crying could be smiling. It chilled him to think perhaps this—the grief, the loss, the locked room—might steal that smile forever.

It seemed… wrong. Feeling his frown— _Watch your face, recruit! You’re a blade when you’re on duty. You’re the last defense, the Maker’s bulwark against magic gone mad. Bulwarks don’t have emotions to display!_ —he rearranged his expression into something neutral, the way he’d been trained. He hardened his heart, the way he’d been trained. He loosened his death-grip on his sword, the way he’d been trained, and turned his thoughts to the Chant. The way he’d been trained.

On the other side of the door, a thin, reedy wail gasped into being and Eleanor’s cries took on a more frantic, desperate note. Even through the door, her _no, no, please no, not this, please please_ was audible. _Maker_ , he thought, unsure if it was a prayer or a curse, and for a moment all his training failed him, and he half-turned toward the door, hand once-more curled around the grip of his blade.

Eleanor screamed as the door opened, screamed as if her heart would break. Was breaking. Had broken. Cullen, still trapped in his moment of near-rebellion, froze as First Enchanter Irving stepped into the hall, immediately closing the door on Eleanor’s desperation. Irving either didn’t notice Cullen’s unorthodox posture and the inch of bared blade, or he pretended not to. He merely paused just over the threshold, settling the whimpering bundle he carried more securely in his arms.

Cullen would have felt if the First Enchanter used magic, but still, the moment Irving looked up and met him gaze for gaze, he felt the rage and righteousness drain from him as if dispelled, leaving only the bitter taste of disobedience in its wake. Cullen began to speak, asking, “Is she—?” before swallowing the rest of the impertinent question. It wasn’t his place to ask. Wasn’t his place to care. He was a blade. A bulwark. The way he’d been trained.

Irving nodded. “Knight-Commander Greagoir and Senior Enchanter Wynne will stay with her until the worst passes. They have done so before. Doubtless they’ll be called upon to do so again. They know their duty.” Cullen tried to parse the words for any criticism about his own behavior, but found none. “They also… I believe they are able to marry compassion and responsibility, in cases such as these. Fortunately it’s rare.”

“And… and the baby?”

They both looked down at the blanket-wrapped newborn. It was red-faced, with tufts of black hair—the father’s influence, perhaps; Eleanor was as sunshine-blonde as Cullen’s own sisters—still damp from its first, swift bath. It opened its mouth and began, once again, to cry.

“She’ll go to the Chantry. As they do.”

The infant protested this, crying all the harder, and Cullen reached for her without thinking. Hands outstretched, sense came back to him and he stopped, blinking at an equally surprised First Enchanter. “Forgive me,” Cullen said, “I—I have a sister several years younger than I. She liked to be, uh, bounced. When she was small.”

Irving said nothing as he gave the child over, even though they both knew it broke a dozen rules. Cullen could hardly be vigilant and prepared to strike down abominations with his arms full of baby instead of sword and shield. He rested the child in the crook of one arm, breathing a quiet apology for the discomfort of plate armor as a cradle, and began to rock her, shifting his weight from foot to foot. She stopped mid-cry, blinking, tiny rosebud lips parted but no longer screaming. “Hungry, like as not,” Cullen said, without looking up and without ceasing his rhythmic bouncing. “She was deprived her first meal.”

“Better for Eleanor,” Irving said softly, with audible grief that took Cullen aback, and almost made him stop bouncing. The baby gurgled her displeasure. “We used to allow—but things were much worse, after. For the mothers. I know it seems cruel, but as long as the children must go, taking them at once is better than the alternative.”

Hungry or not, the baby’s eyes soon closed. Cullen knew better than to stop rocking. Inside the room, Eleanor’s heartbroken cries subsided. With the slight weight of her infant daughter in his arms, Cullen glanced toward the door. “Will she be all right?”

Irving’s eyes narrowed, and heat rose in Cullen’s cheeks. He’d be reported for misconduct for certain, now. Perhaps sent to another Circle, or back to the templars for another year or two of training. But instead of a reprimand, Irving only sighed, bowing his head as if in prayer. Perhaps he did, in that moment, plead for some intercession. It did not come. “Would _you_ be, lad?” Irving shook his head. “We’d best get the girl to her wet nurse before she wakes. Come along.”

Soothed by the pace of walking, the babe did not wake. Once, and only once, Cullen looked back over his shoulder at the unfeeling slab of wood separating the infant from her mother and wondered—just for a second, a truly blasphemous second, training be damned—just what kind of monsters they were.


	3. Care

Cullen dragged his trousers up his trembling legs, fumbling with the fastenings. His fingers felt like sausages, and were about as useful. Closing his eyes helped. So did leaning against the wall. Just for now. Just for a second. He’d be fine as soon as he got outside; his room was so dark and close and _hot_. By the time he finished dressing, his heart pounded liked he’d been playing tag with Bran and Mia for an hour.

Turning, he found his ma standing in the doorway. At least she didn’t look _mad._ Disappointed, maybe. A little worried. The last part was the worst. 

“Cuhhhhh,” said Rosalie, swinging her chubby arms in the air, grinning wide enough all six of her teeth were visible. “Cuh Cuh Cuh Cuh.”

Scuffing his toes against the bedroom floor, Cullen said, “How’d you know?”

“I’m your mother, dearest. I know everything.”

He sighed. 

“Besides which,” she added, “I noticed a distinct lack of complaining when Mia and Branson left, and I know how your heart was set on going with them.”

“I had flowers for the statue and everything. Pretty ones. I picked them out special.”

“I know you did.”

“I’m even not that sick.”

“Oh?” Ma raised her eyebrows. “I’ll tell you what. You come all the way over to me without stumbling, and you’re free to go.”

“To the festival? By myself?”

She nodded, blowing a curl out of her face before tucking it behind one ear, never losing her smile. “You have to make it, first.”

“And if I can’t?”

“Then you promise to stay home and keep Rosie and me company. No more sneaking about.” She wiggled her fingers in his direction. “You sounded like a bronto crashing about in here, my darling. You’ve doubtless many talents, but stealth may not be one of them.”

A little stung, he straightened his shoulders and began crossing the room. Irritation and determination carried him the first few steps. Fever, however, was a daunting opponent. 

Maker, when had his room gotten so big? Usually it felt like he and Bran were forever crashing into each other, scrapping over territory and borders. They’d waged wars of silence and attrition over floorspace the span of a hand. Now, though, his room was vast as a whole country. His da said Denerim was about as far from Honnleath as a person could get and still be in Ferelden, but Cullen was pretty sure his room was suddenly twice that far from one end to the other.

“Cuh Cuh Cuhhhhhhh,” Rosalie cheered, arm-waving so vigorously she toppled hard onto her padded bottom. He paused, expecting her to start crying, but she only laughed like she’d just done something hilarious, and began crawling the distance between them.

She made it look so _easy_.

Cullen lasted three more steps before he wobbled, the room started to spin, and he sank very slowly to the ground. It felt like the time last summer he’d almost drowned in the lake, and Mia had to jump in with all her clothes on and fish him out. His bottom was not padded, and the resulting ache proved his failure. When he raised his face, Ma crouched beside him. Without comment, she handed him a handkerchief still warm from her bosom, smelling of lavender and Andraste’s Grace. Ignoring it, he scrubbed his hands down his face, wiping away his traitorous tears.

“I know you’re disappointed,” she said. “And you’ve every right to be. You were looking forward to this for weeks.”

“Da gave me a whole copper for sweets and Mia said this time she’d let me be the one to carry all the flowers and Nikken and me were going to watch the templars practicing.”

“I can’t help with templars and flowers, but sweets are most certainly within the realm of possibility. Shall we make cookies? You can eat as many as you like, and I’ll teach you all my secrets.” Her eyes shone so much, he didn’t even protest when she dabbed at his damp cheeks with the handkerchief. “Perhaps we’ll even add some of the candied lemon your father brought back from his last trip. I’ve been hoarding it.”

“Like a dragon?”

“Exactly like a dragon. Woe betide the poor knight who thinks he can raid my pantry!” She kissed his brow, lips cool. He closed his eyes again. “But I’ll share with you, my own little knight, and gladly.”

He was really much too big to be carried by his mother, but he didn’t protest as she hoisted him up on her hip. He only curled his arms around her neck and buried his feverish, tear-stained face in her curls, and for a moment didn’t even care that Bran would make fun of him for a thousand years if he saw it.

#

Cullen ignored Ser Erric’s snort as he approached. “Sending children to watch the children now, are they? Sure you can handle it, Ser Greenhorn?”

“Leave the lad be, you great arse,” muttered Ser Annlise, with a quelling look. Erric ignored her, of course. Erric ignored everyone who didn’t laugh at his jests. Or he made them targets for his next ill-spirited jibes. Cullen doubted Erric would turn Annlise into such a butt, however; she’d taken him thrice—and handily—the last time they’d gone toe-to-toe in the practice ring, and never mind she was a head shorter and half Erric’s weight.

“Is it true what they’re saying about you, Ser Fledgling?” 

Strange, how a person could go ice cold and fever hot, all in the same breath. Cullen’s throat tightened, and though he willed with all his might to keep the blush from spreading, he felt his ears betray him. Erric, ever sharp, noticed at once, and laughed. “Wonder who’ll win the pot. Is it the Amell girl, then? Can’t say as I blame you. Even those blighted ugly robes don’t hide the sway in those hips. Heard your hands shook on your blade her whole Harrowing. Did you really shed a tear, after? Or was that just Jerrid pulling my leg?”

Annlise's cheeks were flushed, too, but Cullen didn’t think her emotion was embarrassment. Not with her eyes narrowing like they were; not with her lips compressed in the kind of thin line Cullen never wanted to see directed his way. “That’s quite enough, Ser Erric. Report to the Knight-Commander at once.”

Erric didn’t ignore this. Turning sharply, he scowled down at fair-haired Annlise, brows furrowing in a dangerous glower. “You’ve no right, Annlise.”

“Haven’t I? You’re still on probation after the last offense. You didn’t wonder why we were on rotation with each other? You bet your arse I wouldn’t be here if Knight-Commander Greagoir hadn’t asked it of me.”

“I-it’s fine,” Cullen said, cursing the faint stammer on the first syllable. “He was only—”

“I know what he was doing, Ser Cullen. And I know what my responsibilities are.” Annlise didn’t reach for her blade, didn’t cross her arms over her chest, didn’t so much as widen her stance into something offensive; she just tilted her chin ever so slightly, and set her jaw.

Erric spat an expletive, rounding on Cullen, jabbing him hard enough with an armored finger to send him rocking back slightly on his heels.

“Very well, then, Ser Hayseed. Hide behind your mother’s skirts. Someone’ll make a man of you when she’s not around to overreact to a little harmless teasing.” Erric turned away without waiting for a retort, and Cullen had to swallow the urge to shout a challenge after him, just so he didn’t feel he’d gotten the last word.

Annlise's hand on his arm stopped him. “Leave it,” she said, too softly for Erric to possibly hear. Even Cullen had to dip his head closer. “And watch your back. He’s a bad egg, that one.”

“But he’s a templar. We’re sworn to—”

“For the love of the Maker, lad, don’t make it worse. It’d be lovely as tea and cakes on a rainy day if everyone came to the Order for the right reasons, or if only the truly devout earned their place in our ranks.” She knocked her fist lightly against the sword emblazoned on her breastplate. “This doesn’t ensure goodness any more than a mage’s magic means they’ll turn abomination. Most templars are good people, just as most mages are. But they’re still _people_ , and damn if people aren’t more complicated than black and white, good and evil.” She sighed, and all the anger faded, replaced by a kind of bone-deep weariness that made her look a decade older than her years. “Don’t worry. I—or someone I trust—will keep an eye on Enchanter Solona, at least until this passes.”

Cullen blinked, shaking his head like a startled puppy before he could still himself to a proper templar reserve. “Worry? Should I? You know there’s nothing between Enchanter—I-I would never—there are _rules_.”

“Oh, lad.” Annlise gave his arm a comforting little pat. “You _are_ green as a spring leaf, aren’t you? Erric won’t care. His kind never do. They aim for the underbelly and don’t care you’ll be weeks in the dying when your guts get nicked. But enough of that; you’ve work to do, and I’ve a report to make. They’re all in the kitchen, making cakes or cookies or some such. At most you’ll be asked to dispell a little fire gone awry; the little ones have trouble controlling flame. Do try not to frighten them. They’re just children, after all, meant to be having a bit of fun.”

Cullen watched Annlise leave, and then strode into the kitchens to the sound of shrieking laughter and a cacophony of young voices all speaking over one another. Solona presided over the chaos with a grin, her new enchanter robes covered head to heel with flour. Cullen couldn’t blame the heat of the ovens for the sudden flush in his cheeks. Solona waved as he entered. He nodded back gravely, sorry—even though he shouldn’t have been, he knew he shouldn’t have been—when his cold response made her smile fall.

“Can we make shortbread, Enchanter?” cried one of the littlest ones, too young even to be a proper apprentice, tugging on Solona’s robe. “Proper shortbread?”

Solona fixed the smile back on her lips and turned toward her charge, already reaching for a bowl. Cullen watched her sure movements, wondering who’d taught her the correct proportion of flour and butter and sugar, and thought about suggesting a bit of candied lemon—his mother’s favorite. Remembering Erric’s words, his insinuations, Cullen only held his tongue and stared straight ahead, waiting for something to go wrong.

 


	4. Distress

Mia held Cullen’s hand too tightly, dragging him through the crowd instead of allowing his shorter legs to keep up at a normal pace. Ignoring his protests to slow down, she only tugged harder, and walked faster, until he was practically running along to keep up with her.

“Maker’s breath,” she muttered. “Come  _on_ , Cull. If we’re late, Da’s going to be mad.”

“I’m telling Ma,” he retorted, pulling back on his arm as hard as he could so she had to slow at least a little. “You know you’re not supposed to say that.”

“Say what? That Da’s going to skin us because it took you all morning to decide what flavor sweet you wanted?”

“No.” Cullen stamped a foot and nearly sent them both careening into the back of Mistress Flora. The butcher’s wife looked down, frowning, until she recognized them. Then she smiled gently, ruffled Cullen’s hair, and sent them on their way. 

“No,” he repeated, reaching up with his free hand in a vain attempt to fix the damage Mistress Flora had done. “‘Maker’s breath’.”

“Well, now you just said it, so I’ll tell her you’re just as bad.”

He shook his head, undoing all his work. “I repeated you.”

“But you said it. You said it just the same as I did.” She made the face she always did when she was pretending to be him, all squinty and frowny. He didn’t look like that. At all. “Mamaaa, I’m a bigger baby than Roooosiiiieeee. Wah wah wah.”

“ _Mia!_ ”

She pulled him again, and this time he went without complaining, hoping he didn’t actually sound anything like she made him out to. When they turned the corner to the square, she stopped so abruptly he slammed into her back, and they both went tumbling to their knees. He scraped his palms against the ground, and heard the fabric of his trousers tear. Ma was going to kill him. Tears welled in his eyes.

Mia turned, wrapping him in a strange, encompassing hug. Too tight. 

“I’m  _fine_ ,” he said. “Mia, let  _go_.”

“Don’t look, Cull,” she whispered urgently in his ear. “Don’t look.”

Which only made him want to look more, of course. He wriggled in her arms, trying to look over her shoulder. He only succeeded in breathing in mouthfuls of her hair. Her arms shook. At first he thought it was only the strain of holding him, but then he realized it wasn’t just her arms shaking. Her whole body trembled, and the great hiccuping breaths she took were sobs he couldn’t hear over the crowd. He stilled suddenly, and Mia loosened her grip long enough for him to throw himself backward and away from her, running toward whatever had so upset her. 

Skidding to a stop, breathing hard, he tried to make sense of what he saw. A cart had tipped onto its side, and the contents—wood, crates of food, a rocking chair—lay haphazardly where they’d fallen. He saw a red ball by the statue and wondered if it was from the cart, too. A woman was on her knees next to the cart; she was crying, though he was too far away to hear her. He took a step closer, but then Mia caught up to him. “I said don’t look!” she shouted, angrier than he’d ever seen her. She lifted a hand like she was going to hit him. Tears ran down her face, like the woman by the cart. Her fingers closed into a fist. 

“Don’t look at what?” he said, confused. “I just want to help. They dropped all their stuff. That woman is crying. Are they moving into old Carrin’s farm?”

Mia lowered her hand. “Oh, Cullen.”

He saw it then. Not the broken cart or the wood or the red ball. The crying woman knelt by a person. A little one. Just a little bit littler than him. A year younger, maybe. Not much more. And the little person wasn’t moving. Then he saw his da, and Da was kneeling, too, on the other side of the little person, and Da was crying.

“Mia, what happened?”

“Come on,” she said. This time she took his hand gently, her fingers warm and soft and safe. “Come on, Cull. Be brave, okay? I won’t let go. I’ll be right here.”

He didn’t feel brave as they crossed the square. Mia didn’t tug now, didn’t pull; he almost wished she would. His legs moved funny, like they were stuck in mud and he couldn’t lift them high enough to take proper steps. He got stuck in mud with Bran once, playing templars (Cullen was the apostate Bran was hunting, and his hiding spot had been a little  _too_  good); they came home dirty from head to heel and had to help Ma with all the washing for weeks to make up for it.

Bran. Bran.

Bran was on the ground. The red ball was his; Cullen didn’t know how he’d missed that. They fought over the red ball at least twice a week. Da was crying because it was Bran. Cullen sniffled, rubbing at his eyes with his fist. His hand came away wet.

Cullen didn’t want to go closer. The ball wasn’t the only red thing. Bran had more than just scrapes on hands and knees. Legs weren’t supposed to look like that. “Mia,” he said, feeling sick. Cullen had never seen anyone as pale as Bran. Not even Ma after Rosie was born. He couldn’t tell—he couldn’t—Da was crying. He’d never seen Da cry before. “Mia.”

She didn’t force him. Stopping, she turned and hugged him tight again, hiding his face in the front of her dress so he didn’t have to see.

“I don’t know what happened,” the crying woman moaned. “The horse. The horse shied. The cart went over. Oh, Maker. Oh, Maker. I never saw him. I never even saw him.”

“Da.” Bran's voice. Weak, tired, pained, but Bran's voice. Cullen’s breath hitched, and he held tighter to Mia, crying into her dress and he didn’t care if it wasn’t brave. He didn’t care if he was nothing but a big baby. “I can’t—Da. My legs. Feel. I can’t.”

“It’ll be well, lad. You’re alive. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters. I’m right here. I’m right here with you.”

“But my legs.”

“It’ll be well,” Da repeated, and Cullen knew he was fibbing, because he’d never heard his da sound so sad before, and nothing was well at all.

#

Cullen woke the moment the hand landed on his shoulder to shake him, but it took longer to clear his head enough to recognize Annlise's voice saying, “Wake up, lad. Wake up.”

He attempted to say, “I’m awake,” but it came out a mumble of disconnected syllables interspersed vaguely with vowels. Moving of its own accord, his body righted itself, until he sat blinking on the edge of his bed. Annlise immediately pressed a huge, steaming mug of tea into his hands. He took a gulp. It burned the back of his throat, and she hadn’t put honey in it, but it served its purpose and woke him enough to bring the room into focus. Annlise's fair hair hung disheveled about her shoulders. Her tunic was on backward. He squinted, realized where that squint was staring, and ducked his chin, as though his tea held all the answers to every question he might ever think to ask in its depths.

She said, “Look at me, lad.”

She didn’t say it like an order, but still he obeyed. She was pale. A deep frown creased her brow. He’d never seen her look so serious, but there was something else, too. Something familiar. It made his guts twist. She sat next to him; his bed dipped under her weight. No one else had ever sat on his bed before. This struck him as a ridiculous thought to be having, but he couldn’t chase it away. He wanted another mouthful of tea, but his hands refused to raise the mug to his lips.

He said, “Are they making me leave?”

“Of course not.” Her voice said she was genuinely startled at the question. Cullen inhaled deeply, something fluttery and awful settling in his stomach, though the anxiety didn’t fade entirely. “No. I know Erric’s been making your life hell in every way he can think of, but he hasn’t got power like that. The Knight-Commander likes you a lot more than he likes Erric, that’s for blighted sure. No. No, it’s…”

Her hands twisted in her lap. He offered her his mug, and to his surprise, she accepted it, taking a drink. He wondered if it had burned the back of her throat, too. She said, “There’s been an… an incident. I thought you should hear it from… I thought it might be easier from a friend.”

“But you haven’t said what it is,” he reminded her, after a silent minute passed with her offering nothing more.

“No. You’re right. Of course.” She took another drink of tea. “Enchanter Solona is… she has gone to the Mak—ahh, Maker’s bloody balls, what a bloody awful platitude. She died, lad. Not half an hour ago.”

He thought:  _this is a terrible dream. I ought to wake up at once._

He didn’t wake. He reached for the mug, drank the rest, didn’t even feel if it was warm. He certainly wasn’t.

“I know you were fond of the girl—of Enchanter Solona,” Annlise said, all in a rush, as though speaking her previous words had knocked down the dam and loosed a flood. “It was her friend, you see. You know the lad, Jowan? I haven’t the whole story, but evidently he fancied himself in love with one of the Chantry sisters, and she with him. They were planning an escape. Solona got all mixed up in it, and it all—it all went wrong. It all went bloody wrong.”

“Jowan,” Cullen repeated. Dark hair. A little weaselly. He’d always wondered how someone like him ended up a friend of someone as bright and golden as Solona. They didn’t match. “No. He’s not Harrowed. Solona’s  _powerful_ , everyone knows that. There’s been a mistake. There’s no way he—”

“Blood magic,” Annlise said, like the sound of a body dropping on the gallows. “He took down three templars. Vera might recover. Gill and Vannic won’t.” She spoke clearly now, like he was the Knight-Commander, and she merely offering a report. “Enchanter Solona… she bought time. First Enchanter Irving and the Knight-Commander were on their way, you see. She… bought time. Tried.”

“Were? Tried?”

Annlise’s knuckles went white as she clenched her hands into fists. “They were too late. The bastard escaped. Three of ours, Enchanter Solona, and they showed up too damned  _late._ ”

“His phylactery—”

“Gone.”

_Gone._

“I’ll take your patrol today, if you like.”

He shook his head.

Annlise rose, settling a hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. He hardly felt it, even though he knew her grip was strong. “You know where to find me, lad. Cullen. If you—well. You know where to find me.” She paused at the doorway, hand on the wall. “I am sorry,” she said, and sounded like she meant it.

He counted to ten after she closed the door, and then he threw the mug against the wall. Hard. As hard as he could.

Its shattering did not make him feel better, and when he shoved the heels of his hands against his eyes, they pressed tears onto his cheeks.

_Gone._


	5. Empathy

The room Cullen should have shared with Bran felt impossibly huge and impossibly lonely without his brother in it. Most nights he slept with his face to the wall so he wouldn’t catch sight of the neatly made and empty bed. Once a fortnight without fail, his ma stripped the sheets and washed them same as all the rest, even though they were clean and still smelled of the last washing.

Every morning Rosalie lifted her little voice over breakfast and said, “Where Bran?”

Every morning Ma flinched, Cullen’s breath caught, and Mia said, “He’s gone with Da, but he’ll be home soon, Rosie,” with the force of a shove directed not at Rosalie, but at the Maker, as if pure determination would make it so. Perhaps, for Mia, it could. Cullen knew he didn’t like going head to head with his elder sister when she’d set her will to something.

Still, it felt like a hundred years, a thousand, a whole Age since the day in the square with the cart and the accident and the red ball (which Cullen had since taken to the edge of the ravine and flung away with all the force he could muster so no one would ever see it again). Da had even gone to Wilhelm, begging him for help with tears in his eyes.

But Wilhelm had only taken a sober look at Bran and said, “The lad’s beyond my aid. I could ease the pain, but unless you’ve a mind to haul him all the way to Kinloch Hold and hope there’s a healer there better than I, there’s naught to be done for his legs. He’s crippled. Best get used to it. He’ll adapt.”

Wilhelm had said it all with a twist of the lips that made Cullen’s blood boil. Even now, he could remember the heat of that sudden rage. Mia, already pulled tight as an arrow looking for a target, had spit half a dozen curses so inventive Cullen didn’t even know what most of them meant, her hand tightening around Cullen’s so hard he thought all the bones would break. Da had sent them home, then, and two days later he was gone, with Bran sleep-drugged in the back of the cart, even though it was too cold to brave the pass.

Or so Ma’d said, crying, as she’d clung to Da’s arm. “I won’t lose you both.”

But Da was immovable. Like a mountain. Like the statue in the square, big and empty-eyed and cold. “We haven’t lost him. We won’t lose him.”

“If the Maker wills—”

“No. _No._ ” Ma’s hand loosened. Fell. Her wide eyes, so like Cullen’s own, filled with tears. Da touched her cheek with the backs of his large fingers, but she pulled away and would not look at him. “I will act, not plead on my knees until they bleed and buckle on the chantry’s unfeeling stones. Let the Maker guide my path, if He wishes. Let Him clear the pass or provide a healer more talented than Wilhelm. I will not sit idly by and wring my hands while Branson withers.”

Weeks ago, now. Months. An Age. Father and son had gone in the late fall, snow on the air, and now it was spring with grass starting to turn brown edges green. There’d been no messages, no news. Ma no longer rushed hopefully to the market when the peddlers came. Ma no longer seemed very hopeful at all.

“Where Bran?” Rosalie asked. “Where Bran?”

Even she knew better than to ask, “Where Da?”

Later, alone, helping Mia clear the garden, Cullen finally asked the question that had plagued him for weeks, for months. “Do you really think they’ll be home soon?”

His sister paused, hands tightening on the hoe until her knuckles whitened. Her hair was untidy and her eyes dark with exhaustion. She was only twelve, but, there, standing in the garden and leaning on her hoe like it was the only thing keeping her upright, Cullen thought she looked much older. Old as Ma. Old as some of the Chantry sisters. Old like she might never play games again, or laugh, or sing songs just for the sake of singing.

Wearily, she said, “Do you want the answer I give Rosie, too, Cull?”

“No,” he said, because he wasn’t a three-year-old baby like Rosie. He was nearly eight, now, and the man of the house, least until Da came back. “I want the truth.”

Had Mia always looked so sad, these past months? It made his stomach hurt to think he was only noticing it now. “If you know to ask for that, then you already know what I’ll say, don’t you?”

He swallowed hard and didn’t pretend not to understand her meaning. “What’re we going to do?”

Mia glanced at the blue sky, shading her eyes with one hand. Just when Cullen thought she wouldn’t answer, she said, “Plant potatoes. Collect Missy’s eggs. Wonder how long credit will tide us over in town.” She sighed. “Lie to Rosie. Lie to Ma.”

“The Chantry says—”

Stomping her foot, Mia slammed the hoe against the still-firm ground hard enough the handle creaked. “No one prays more than Ma, and what does it matter? The Maker’s not listening to us. I don’t know why we should bother listening to Him.”

“Mia,” Cullen breathed, half-fearing a lightning strike or sudden avalanche at her blasphemy. Nothing came.

She threw down the hoe with a sound of frustrated disgust that might actually have been a sob, and stalked away to the henhouse. Left alone, brisk air biting at his cheeks and making his eyes sting and nose run, Cullen picked up the tool and began carefully working where his sister had left off.

#

After two pints of unwatered, bitter ale, nothing seemed quite as grim as it had. Cullen heard laughter and realized it was his own, escaping at some jest of Annlise’s. Her mimicry of Erric, it turned out, was admirably accurate, and she pulled no punches as she verbally emasculated him. Mia, he thought, would love her.

Annlise had come to him earlier, looking torn between boxing his ears and giving his arse a swift kick (or perhaps both, with only the order in question), and told him in no uncertain terms that he was not taking over anyone’s shift for the foreseeable future; he’d done quite enough double duty. He attempted to protest—the work kept him focused; kept him from thinking too hard about duty and failure, blood magic and abominations, dead girls whose smiles he’d never see directed his way again and that he missed, oh, he missed—but she was formidable, demanding he bathe (“Soap yourself thrice, if you’ve the sense the Maker gave you.”), dress in something other than armor, and meet her by the docks in an hour.

Baffled as he was, the words carried the weight of an order, and Cullen, ever the good soldier, did precisely as she bade.

To his surprise, Annlise was not the harbinger of some dire punishment and was not, as he half-feared, tasked with ousting him from the Order altogether. She merely commandeered a rowboat, pointed it toward the far docks, and laughed at him when he kept glancing back over his shoulder, expecting some outcry from the tower at any moment. “This isn’t an escape attempt, Cullen,” she’d said, her fair hair caught by the chill breeze off the lake that made him feel naked without his plate armor, her eyes glinting in the dying light of the sun.

She hadn’t said what, precisely, it _was_ until she’d pushed open the door to The Spoiled Princess, greeted the bartender with a pleasant wave and a smile, and ordered two pints (“And not the shit you serve Erric and his lot, either, Jevis”).

The ale was very good. The company even better. Some of the tension he’d feared was eternal faded. His shoulders felt looser. He smiled and didn’t feel as though he were lying.

Annlise leaned close, smiling in a way that made Cullen’s guts twist—and he wasn’t certain if he liked the feeling or not. “Now that lass? The pretty redhead over—don’t _stare_ , you great arse—she’d have you in a heartbeat.” The smile widened, accompanied by a wink. “I think her brother might, too, for that matter.”

He flushed hot, wishing he had more ale, if only to give his hands something to do, but he did not look away from her. Annlise propped her head on her hands, watching him with her too-sharp gaze. Her eyelashes were very long and dark, for one so fair-haired. “You _are_ green, aren’t you?” she asked, but with none of the cruelty Erric employed.

He said, “I’m not—I’m not inexperienced.”

Even he heard the unspoken _entirely._ Annlise didn’t laugh at him, didn’t turn her sharp wit his way. “It needn’t always be love,” she said, very seriously, so seriously his heart skipped three beats and then set to pounding to catch up. “It can be comfort, too. Between friends. If you wanted.”

“But—you? _Why_?” he blurted. “You’re—you could have anyone.”

One corner of her mouth tilted up wryly. “And you couldn’t? With those curls, those guileless eyes, those big hands that look so capable?” She shook her head, sighing. “This place is lonely. Lonelier than other Circles, even, so far from a sheltering city. A person could die of the loneliness here, I think, or be changed forever. And not for the better.” She glanced away from him, toward some middle distance that evidently pained her. “I cared for someone once, as you did your Solona. Some years ago now. A mage. An accident, they told me. I was never sure. I wished for comfort afterward, but had no one to ask.” She shrugged, returning to him, to the bar, to their empty glasses, to the laughter at the tables behind them. “It’s only an offer, and not one you’re obligated to take. I don’t think I’m wrong about that redhead.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to her,” Cullen said.

“Perhaps not,” Annlise agreed, “though like as not she knows very well it would only be an evening.”

But the redheaded girl with her sweet smile and pert nose dusted with freckles reminded him too much of Solona, and the unfairness ran deeper than merely his transiency. He shook his head. He rested his fingertips lightly on the back of Annlise’s hand and hoped she couldn’t feel them trembling.

The sheets smelled of lavender, and Annlise knew a great deal more than he. She was a patient teacher, and he a good student.

In the end, he did not think himself the only one comforted.


	6. Fortitude

Just as spring turned to summer, Da and Bran returned.

Cullen, out weeding the garden, praying desperately over green shoots that didn’t seem to grow quickly enough, saw them first. Squinting into the sun, he thought his eyes were playing tricks. But the shadows deepened, drew closer, and he heard Bran’s bright voice calling his name.

He didn’t trample any of his baby plants, but as soon as he was free of the garden, he ran as fast as he could toward them, shouting at the top of his lungs for Ma, for Mia. Da slowed the cart and Cullen skidded to a stop, suddenly shy, suddenly afraid the whole thing was just his imagination. He’d often pictured Da and Bran returning just like this, silhouetted by the afternoon sun, and Cullen the first to greet them.

“Cull,” said Bran, smiling the same smile Cullen remembered so clearly. He’d missed that smile, like he’d missed having his brother safe and sound in the room they shared. Something about the smile was what convinced Cullen their return was real.

That, and the changes. Bran was thinner, and though he was sitting, seemed taller. Maybe taller than Cullen, even, who remained stubbornly shorter than the other lads his age. Ma told him he’d eventually grow into his hands and feet, but Cullen feared she was only trying to soothe him. Da looked haggard, and coughed harshly.

“Trust you kept the place in one piece, my lad?” said Da, with a smile of his own.

And Cullen, more fool he, let himself think everything would go back to normal, now.

Whatever ‘normal’ had been before, it no longer existed. Still coughing, Da had to leave again almost as soon as he arrived; Cullen heard his parents arguing about it late into the night, while Bran and Rosalie slept. When he padded into the room his sisters shared, he found Mia awake, leaning against the head of her bed, clutching her pillow. Wordless, he climbed up next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She trembled, but turned, pressing a kiss to his temple.

In the morning, Da was gone. Ma said he promised to be back by the first frost, with treats for all of them from Redcliffe or Denerim. Only Rosalie seemed pleased. Or perhaps only Rosalie believed it.

Though Bran’s legs were better than they’d been, he needed crutches to walk, and even those steps were slow and stumbling, liable to end in a tumble to the ground.

Children, Cullen learned, were vicious. Even the ones who’d once laughed and played with Bran, the ones who’d followed his every daring lead or believed his every impossible story, tittered behind their hands or avoided him altogether. When they ran to the lake, desperate for the coolness of water against summer-warmed skin, they did not stop at the Rutherford home to collect Bran.

Cullen heard them laughing as they passed. For his part, he preferred solitude and favored trips to the lake with few, if any, others, but he could see Bran was not of his mind. Though he mustered smiles and pretended at indifference, Cullen saw the way his brother’s face froze every time he heard the laughter outside that no longer included him. Froze, and then cracked, letting loose an even more strained smile, an even more hollow laugh.

Mia tried to teach him chess, tried to include him, tried to tell him he’d gain strength again if only he kept on working at it, until Bran bristled under her attention and became so snappish and short-tempered even Ma noticed and was forced to disapprove. On the fourth or fifth or sixth time the laughing children failed to include him, Bran snapped his ire at an unsuspecting Rosalie, reducing her to floods of tears.

“Come on,” Cullen said, before Ma could scream. Or start crying herself; she did that more and more, these days.

“I don’t want to—” Bran began, but Cullen only shook his head, handed his brother one of the crutches, and waited with his fists propped on his hips until Bran heaved himself to his feet.

“They’re not better than you,” Cullen said, holding the door for his brother, speaking quietly.

Bran said nothing aloud, though the sullen set of his jaw and his shoulders spoke volumes. Cullen didn’t press, but he did turn down the path toward the lake. He knew he couldn’t possibly hear laughter from here, but his imagination sketched it in. Beside him, Bran huffed and shuffled, thumping his crutches down hard with every step, glowering at the ground like he blamed it for everything that had ever happened to him.

“Da should’ve let me die,” Branson spat, words as poisonous as the white berries at the edge of the lake Ma said they were never, ever to eat. “That’s the truth. Now I’m just—I’m just—a _burden_.”

Cullen turned so sharply he was forced to grab hold of his brother’s shoulders to keep him from toppling over in surprise. “Who said that to you?”

“No one needed to say it. It’s just true.”

He didn’t shake Bran, even though a part of him wanted to. Instead, he remembered all those times Rosie asked _where Bran_ so plaintively, and forced himself to be gentle. “Who, Bran?”

Even with all his tumbles, all his frustration, all his anger; even with the loneliness and the terrible censure of his one-time friends, Bran had not wept since returning home. Not that Cullen had seen, or heard in the darkness of their shared room. Now, his eyes filled with tears. “One of the healers. They thought I was sleeping.”

“Well, they were _wrong_.”

“Cull, you can’t fix everything. You can’t—” Bran lifted a crutch, turning the end in a vague little circle, the way someone else might’ve gestured mildly with a hand. “Not everything broken can be put back the way it was. Not everything’s as neat as the rows in your garden or the way you fold the washing.”

Cullen swallowed the protest rising on his tongue and forced himself to think for a minute or two about his brother’s words. “You’re good at chess,” he said at last. Bran tilted his head, confused. “No, really. You see patterns where I only see straight lines. Like—like the rows in the garden, I guess. D’you think… do you think you might play with me? Try and teach me? Mia trounces me every time and she’s vile when she’s gloating.”

“Or you’re just a sore loser.”

Cullen chuckled. “That, too. And maybe… maybe we can go swimming. I know a quieter spot. Sometimes it’s just nice, you know. To float.”

They moved along the path for a while, their progress slower than it once had been, but steady. “Y’know, Cull,” Bran said, “half the time Mia beats you ‘cause you wear all your thoughts and feelings out there on your face where anyone can see.”

“I don’t know what you—”

Bran raised skeptical eyebrows, a look wholly stolen from their mother, and usually applied when she caught one of them with a hand in the cookie jar. “You think the swimming’ll make my legs stronger. You think the lack of an audience will make me… well, bolder, or something. Not afraid of what they’ll say, or if they’ll laugh.”

Cullen flushed hot, and though the sun was blazing overhead, knew he could not blame it.

“S’okay,” Bran continued mildly, already several steps further down the path. “In this case, I think _maybe_ you’re not wrong.”

#

Not for the first time, Cullen wondered why a guard was always stationed outside the Harrowing chamber, even with no Harrowing scheduled. Even in case of emergency—rare enough, but not without precedent—a standing guard made little sense. Templars would arrive with the mage to be Harrowed, after all. He turned on a heel, hand on the hilt of his sword, and paced from one end of the hall to the other. Once. Twice. Thrice, accompanied only by the sound of his own heavy footsteps, the creaking of his own armor, the annoyed huff of his own breath.

It was, after all, his own fault he’d drawn this straw. Everyone knew this was a punishment post, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t deserve it, at least a little. A struck match, a tiny spark, had exploded into a conflagration whose kindling had been laid months ago, before the King died at Ostagar; before infrequent news from outside hinted at Blight and civil war both; before hushed whispers amongst the mages had their templars on the highest alert, jumping at shadows. It was Erric, of course, who’d struck that match, sliding it down the still-rough edge of Cullen’s frayed emotions to light it. Erric, of course, who’d taunted and teased and claimed loudly and at length to anyone who’d listen that the only way to deal with potentially rebellious mages was to cull them, like one did with livestock.

“Get it,” he’d said, standing too close to Cullen, lips twisted in the very cruelest of his smirks, “we’ll leave it to you, Ser Crybaby. _Cull_ them.”

The healers said even they couldn’t fix Ser Erric’s shattered jaw in one go. He’d be in the infirmary for weeks. Though he’d been cowed by Greagoir’s displeasure, Cullen hadn’t missed the faint, even—dare he think it?—appreciative smile the healer sent his way.

And so, the Harrowing chamber. Night shift, of course. Night after night after night, with none but his own thoughts to keep him company. The silence was oppressive, and the boredom worse. Surreptitiously, though there was no one nearby to see him do it, Cullen rolled his stiff shoulders and allowed himself the indulgence of a tiny yawn.

It could have been worse. He could have been or brought up on charges. He could have been sent to solitary. He could have been sent home, a failure in the eyes of family and Order alike.

When the screaming started, Cullen thought his own mind—his own exhaustion—was playing tricks on him. Or, perhaps, that it was some apprentice prank, though no apprentices were allowed near the Harrowing chamber until their own Harrowings. (“Why must they be kept so ignorant?” Cullen had asked once. “Why must they always be frightened when they go?” Even Solona had been frightened; he remembered that. The wide whites of her eyes, the starkness of her faint freckles against milk-pale cheeks. He’d hated seeing it, and not just because she was kind and made him laugh. It seemed so wrong that a templar ended their apprenticeship with a night of prayer and vigil, while a mage had to fight for their life, knowing a sword hung heavy above their neck should they falter. No one had answered him.)

“Who goes there?”

No one answered, and the screaming grew louder. For an instant longer, Cullen hesitated to leave his post.

An instant, no more. And yet, as he turned the corner, he wondered if that instant might’ve saved lives. Might’ve stopped—might’ve—

A cry of death, he realized, sounded very different from a cry of pain. From a cry of fear. From a cry of despair. From a cry of desperation. And Cullen, frozen in the doorway, uncertain how to understand the chaos he witnessed, heard them all.

“Cullen! We are overrun, we are betrayed, Cull—” But Beval—sweet Beval, who filched cookies for the mage children, whom Cullen had known since the first day of training back in Redcliffe, who’d always had a smile and a joke, who’d never failed to give Cullen a hard time about talking in his sleep even as he slipped him chamomile and lavender tisanes his mother swore by—never finished speaking Cullen’s name. His eyes bulged; blood poured from his mouth where words ought to have been.

A hand—if it could be called such—a black, clawed hand pushed through Beval’s back, through his chest, _through_ his blighted armor. The sound—the sound—his bones—the twisting screech of plate—the blood pouring to the ground in a flood, a cascade—Cullen turned his head and vomited, even as he dragged his sword from its sheath and stumbled into a proper defensive position. Before he could strike, the abomination (had he been _curious_ about them, before? Had he been so foolish?) crackled and melted beneath the stark white light of a truly powerful holy smite.

Would Beval have lived, if that smite had been Cullen’s? If he’d not stood frozen like a lamb drawn to the slaughter, forced to watch what was about to become of him? “Thank the Maker,” gasped Annlise. He recognized her voice before he recognized _her_. She was blood-soaked, her blonde hair running dark with red. She wore leathers, not plate, and the hem of her shirt was only half-tucked into her trousers. “Not mine,” she said, at what must have been his stricken look. “Not most of it, anyway.”

A dozen other templars followed her in and pushed the great doors shut. Farris, Cullen knew. And Vera, who’d survived Jowan’s attack. Just months ago? A lifetime. Cullen shook his head, both afraid and hopeful that this was some dream, that he’d fallen asleep at his post and would be punished for it. Not real. Not this.

“What happened?” he asked, and even his words tasted like blood.

“Uldred,” said Annlise. “Blood magic. Ahh, Maker, this _madness._ We must stop him. We must hold this ground. Prevent him from entering the Harrowing chamber. Maker only knows what he might do there, with the Veil so thin.”

“Yes,” Cullen agreed, and his fist tightened with new purpose around the hilt of the blade still untouched by blood.


	7. Game

Da didn’t return by first frost. Neither did he come home the week after. When he hadn’t returned by the time the snows started falling, Cullen knew by his mother’s expression it meant Da and his cart would be kept on the wrong side of the passes until the spring thaw.

Ma grew thinner; her hands always chapped and reddened; her hair so brittle that it broke when she brushed it. Sometimes, when one of them called her, she blinked, dazed, as if summoned from far, far away. The sadness in her eyes said he didn’t want to know where she’d been.

Cullen didn’t need Mia to tell him something was wrong. Ma’s trips to the Chantry with or without him grew less frequent. He still went, when he could. Sometimes he brought Rosie, her little gloved hand held tight in his so there was no risk of running, of falling, of getting caught between a red ball and a runaway cart. Rosie’s left mitten had a hole in it; he wondered if Mia could darn it. He didn’t dare ask Ma. She’d only cry.

“Why she so sad, Cully?” Rosie asked. He thought, at first, she meant Ma, and he prepared the careful lies, but when he turned to speak them he found her rosy-cheeked face upturned, eyes fixed on the statue of Andraste.

He hadn’t ever thought she looked sad before. Not with her big sword to protect everyone, not with her strong shoulders and her armor.

“Come on, Rosie,” he said, giving her hand a bit harder a tug than strictly needed. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes, grey like Ma’s, filled with tears. She didn’t cry them, though. Cullen almost wished she would.

When they passed the baker’s shop, the baker’s wife gave them two loaves of bread. “Yesterday’s,” she said, waving off Cullen’s insistence that he had no money with which to pay for them. Annie, who worked at the tavern, ran after them when they passed and handed Cullen a dozen eggs.

His mouth watered, even as he tried to give them back.

“Oh,” Annie said, ruffling his and Rosie’s hair in turn, “we can’t keep up with our hens. You’re doing a favor, taking them off our hands.”

Something about this seemed strange, but, since their own hens were being stingy with their laying, Cullen only accepted the gift and continued on. Just inside the gate to their garden, he found a basket of preserves and jarred vegetables and even a gorgeous piece of honeycomb dripping sweet gold.

“This is what it’s come to,” Ma said so softly Cullen knew it wasn’t meant for him, accepting the offerings with her chapped, red hands.

“We can have eggs?” Rosie asked brightly. “I miss eggs.”

Ma turned her head so quickly Cullen knew it was to hide tears. Gripping Rosie’s hand, he pulled her away from the kitchen. “No chess,” Rosie said, pouting. “Hide seek.”

“Later.” When she dug her heels in—she was surprisingly strong, for such a little thing—Cullen hissed, “Naughty girls don’t get any eggs.”

A different kind of lie. One that made him feel so twisty and sick inside that Mia trounced him at chess three times, until even Bran said, “D’you forget how to play, Cull?”

“Dead queen!” crowed Rosalie, holding the little white piece aloft. “She got stabbeded.”

“Stabbed,” Mia corrected. “And no, she didn’t. It’s just a game, Rosie. No one got stabbed.”

“The chicken got stabbeded so we could eat it.”

“Rosie!” Mia pushed both hands through her hair, fingers spasming as if she wanted to tug on it.

“What? Chickens get stabbeded and pigs and even peoples.”

“No,” said Cullen. “Not people. Not here, Rosie.”

“I dreamed it. Like with the chicken.” Rosie jutted her pointy chin out defiantly. “Bran said—”

“Bran didn’t say anything,” said Bran, holding up placating hands. “I’m not falling for this trap.”

“You said the knights have swords to fight with and the queen has a pretty dress with flowers on it and the little castles each have five hundred rooms in them all with feather beds and pillows and new shoes and mittens without holes.”

Cullen glared at Bran, and by the shamefaced look his brother gave in return, realized his brother had likely been spinning tales that got out of hand. Not, he had to admit, that feather beds and pillows and mittens without holes didn’t sound nice.

“Those are just stories,” Mia said.

“Stories is better than stupid chess,” huffed Rosie.

“Are better,” Cullen corrected. “Stories _are_ better.”

“ _Eggs_ are better,” Rosie insisted. “And bread and honey and jam with blackberries in. ‘Specially if Cully’s queen’s dead.”

“She’s not dead,” Cullen snapped, so sharply Rosie dropped the queen and sent her bouncing across the floor. His throat felt tight and his eyes prickled, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, have said why. “She’s not dead,” he repeated, quietly. “She’s just… in prison. For a little while. She’ll escape. She’ll get rescued.”

“Wonderful,” said Mia, sighing. “Now we’re all telling tales.”

“Better than feeling sorry for ourselves,” Bran said.

For another moment, Mia looked like she might protest. Then she smiled, almost as wide as she used to smile before the red ball and the cart and the long almost-year without Da. “Fine,” she said, “but this time let’s make up a story that follows along with all the moves of the game.”

Bran brightened, Rosie settled on Mia’s lap, and Cullen fetched his fallen queen from the floor, setting her back in her proper place.

“Start ‘Once upon a time,’” demanded Rosie. “They always start ‘Once upon a time.’ And no one’s ever hungry, but sometimes they get stabbeded.”

“Once upon a time,” Mia said, snuggling Rosie with one arm and moving one of her pawns with her free hand, “there were two kings and two kingdoms, and for no reason anyone could remember, they were always at war with one another…”

#

Battle, Cullen learned—true battle, with its heat and chaos and the stink of fear and blood and shit and death—was nothing like training. Nothing like the ordered give and take of a chess game. True battle stole the ability to think beyond the next swing of one’s exhausted sword arm, the next dodge, the next desperate inhale of willpower that exhaled as a cleanse or a purge or, more infrequently, a full holy smite.

He, who’d worked so hard and practiced so often and studied so endlessly, he’d thought himself prepared. How foolish. How foolish he’d been.

Words of the Chant slipped through his mind, wet with blood. _Magic exists to serve man_ , as one of the rogue mages—Kipton, fire, always with tricks for the littlest children—sent a tongue of bright-hot flame whipping Cullen’s way. It missed hitting him only because the stones beneath his feet were so slick he slipped as he tried to bring his shield up.

Farris’ shield. He—he didn’t need it anymore. Not with his face burned past recognition. Not with his eyes boiled out of his head leaving only empty sockets to stare at the ceiling.

Kipton had done that, too. Kipton, who’d always seemed pleasant enough, who’d been polite if never friendly, who’d never once been given a reprimand. He snarled now, features hardly recognizable save the bright leaf green of his bloodshot eyes, and when Annlise’s smite caught him, Cullen brought up his heavy arm bearing its heavy sword without hesitation. Without too much hesitation.

Not all mages were trained to battle—Cullen knew that well enough. For every elemental mage whose staves were weapons as powerful as their magic, the Circle held half a dozen healers or herbalists or scholars whose magic was strong enough to keep magelight lit but not much else.

When Uldred—almost smiling, the Maker-forsaken bastard—finally appeared, he dragged a dark-haired youth with him. Cullen recognized the lad at once. Marken. Gifted healer, hopeless at conjuring even the simplest offensive spells. Terrified of templars. Erric had enjoyed picking on him almost as much as he’d enjoyed picking on Cullen.

Though Marken, of course, hadn’t been able to fight back. And Cullen wasn’t sure the lad had an Annlise on his side, either. Cullen had known. He should have done more. The brief swell of self-loathing—and renewed loathing for Erric—fueled his will, but before he could loose the smite, Uldred shook his head, brought his hand up, and slit Marken’s throat.

Like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t the vilest misuse of power—

_—never to rule over him never to rule over him—_

Cullen lurched forward, already lifting his sword, but Uldred’s bloody hands gestured and Cullen stopped. Was stopped. Was _forced_ to stop. Around him, mages and templars alike lay dead and dying. Moaning. Uldred came with demons—with abominations—with more mages, whose names Cullen knew, whose faces were as familiar to him as those now lying waxen and slack-jawed in pools of blood on the floor. He couldn’t even see the color of the stones, anymore. So many. So many. Surely the rest of the Circle—surely Greagoir—

_—Maker, though the darkness comes upon me—_

“Now, now, now,” Uldred drawled, sidling closer as the blood dripped heavy from his hands. _Tap tap tap_ against the stone like raindrops on a roof, like mice in the walls. “That’s quite enough.”

Still, Cullen could not move, could not fight, could not even blink, though his eyes burned. Uldred grabbed Cullen’s chin with cold, cold fingers and forced it down, forced Cullen to meet his eyes.

Cullen had seen madness, before. He’d seen hate and cruelty.

He’d never seen evil. Not truly. Not like this.

_—I shall embrace the Light. I shall embrace the Light. I shall—_

“Leave him be, Uldred,” Annlise snapped. “He’s just a boy.”

Uldred flicked the fingers not clenched around Cullen’s chin at her, as if she were a fly buzzing in his ear, irritating but of no consequence. She fell silent. Not, Cullen thought, because she wished to.

If he’d been able to move, Cullen might’ve lost anything that remained of his dinner when Uldred smiled at him. “You _are_ just a boy, aren’t you?” His fingers tightened, nails digging into Cullen’s flesh. The too-calm cadence of his voice never changed. “I was a boy once, before your kind came and pulled me kicking and screaming from my life, from my home, from my mother’s grasping arms. I did not stay a boy long. Nor, I think, will you.” The smile pulled one corner of Uldred’s mouth higher. “Shall we play a game? That’s what boys do, isn’t it? I hardly remember, it’s been so long.”

Uldred released him roughly, dragging sharp nails into Cullen’s skin, doubtless leaving weals of blood—Cullen’s, Marken’s, Maker only knew—in their wake.

“Hide and seek?” Uldred asked, with unsubtle condescension. He gestured around them. “I’d say chess, but all the pieces are broken. Wicked Grace? Chanson d’Argent?” He laughed. “Dead Man’s Tricks? Ahh, but no cards.”

Whatever spell held Cullen held Annlise, too, but, unlike him, she could speak and blink and lift her chin. When he drew near enough, she spat at him. Caught off-guard by her defiance, Uldred did not move away in time; the spittle hit his cheek just under his eye and slid slowly downward.

Uldred didn’t grab her chin. He didn’t touch her at all, merely walking a slow circle around her, lifting the hem of his robes and stepping over the bodies as if they meant nothing. As if his actions hadn’t—as if—

_—I shall weather the storm. I—_

“I know,” Uldred said. “We’ll play King of the Castle. You know it, boy? I stand here, King of all I survey.” He was tall enough that, even with Annlise between them, Cullen could see the entirety of his expression. He wished desperately he couldn’t. All those years, all that training. And to what use? For what purpose? To watch his brethern die. To see his charges slain or turned to a darkness from which they could never be saved. “And anyone, _anyone_ —” He lifted a hand, the hand holding the knife that had killed Marken. “—Who dares stand in my way—” With his other hand, he gripped Annlise’s hair, her blood-soaked sunshine hair, and wrenched her head back, baring her throat. Cullen saw her swallow. He imagined he could see the flutter of her pulse. “—Must be pushed from my castle’s walls.”

Even at the half-twisted angle Uldred held her at, Annlise’s eyes met Cullen’s. Uldred had stolen her voice again, or she couldn’t speak the way he held her, but her lips formed the words—the unmistakable words— _look away._ Able to move once more, he flung himself toward her only to slam into an invisible barrier that flared purple under his touch.

_—I shall endure._

“Look away, love,” whispered a familiar voice in his left ear. Solona. He’d _known_ she wasn’t dead. That someone as strong as she couldn’t be brought down by a cloak-clinging, sycophantic weasel like Jowan. “Look away.”

And—Maker help him, Maker save him, Maker forgive him—he did.

_I shall—_

Uldred didn’t kill her quickly, and even bound in his prison, Cullen could feel the magic Uldred summoned. Not human. Not human. The _power_. Dear Maker, what fools they’d all been to think any mere templar strong enough to fight such power, contain such power. For all their training, all their lyrium, all their smites and cleanses and righteousness, they were nothing next to a creature like Uldred. Too small, too weak. Powerless. Helpless.

Annlise screamed and screamed and screamed. Until she didn’t.

_—endure—_

“Maker,” he mumbled, pleaded, wept. “Maker, no, Maker, Ma—”

“Good boy,” said Uldred from very far away. “Let’s see how long you can play _this_ game.”

_—endure endure endure endure—_

“No, love,” said Solona, her hands on his shoulders, her lips against the soft skin just behind his ear. She smelled not of blood and sweat and death, but of Honnleath in the spring and Ma’s lemon shortbread and Chantry incense. “That was just a silly game. This is real. This is real. This is real.”

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the many, many ways a whole three-game playthrough can shake out, I'm going to end up relying on my own choices rather heavily (my Hawke, my Inquisitor, to some degree my Warden), and how those choices formed my perception of Cullen's character, rather than trying to keep things blank or unspecific. (However, it will stay game-compliant as much as possible, so for anyone familiar with my other work, it won't reference From the Ashes, since that went AU.) Also, I *am* currently juggling several works in process across multiple fandoms, I know, but I do promise that I finish what I start. I'm just not prepared to commit to an exact timeline :) I won't abandon you, though!


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